March 10, 2015

One of the big benefits of switching from a lower paying but more creative job (in the scrapbooking industry) to higher paying but less exciting work (email marketing and business ghostwriting) is that I can earn more money for our adoption fund in much less time. Because adoption? It ain't cheap.

It also means I have creative time and creative energy to spare, which has resulted in more crafting, scrapbooking, writing, researching, and purposeless creativity than I've done in years. It's a beautiful thing.

One of the things I'm doing these days is trying to shop around a children's picture book I've written. I have one complete manuscript, with a bunch of half-finished stories and other ideas brewing, too.

I'm currently in the "research the publishing industry" phase, right in the middle of trying to decide whether to submit the manuscript directly to publishers or shop for an agent—or do both, simultaneously.

As I'm immersing myself into this world, I thought I'd share some of my favorite picture books with you. But I have too many. So I decided to break them into categories and start a series.

First up: five favorite rhyming picture books for children.

When you read a book to a child over and over (and over), it helps when there's a lovely, lyrical cadence to the language. Here are five delightful picture books that have such a wonderful real-aloud rhythm that they're irresistible to read, as nominated by me and my daughter Keira, age 4.

"Wynken, Blynken and Nod one night sailed off in a wooden shoe.Sailed on a river of crystal light, into a sea of dew..."

Why I Love It: The words, written over 100 years ago by American poet and literary critic Eugene Field, weave a web of pure childhood magic. And the illustrations are just as timeless and nostalgic in this version of the classic tale, published in the 1990s. I love the winking old moon later on in the book.

Why Keira Loves It: She loves searching for the little black kitty in every picture.

"Baby Llama, what a tizzy! Sometimes Mama's very busy.Please stop all this llama drama and be patient for your mama."

Why I Love It: It's amazing to see how many coherent rhymes Dewdney found for "llama/pajama/mama/drama" without ever sacrificing a meaningful storyline for verbal wordplay. The illustrations are beyond precious, especially the expressions of unwarranted terror on baby llama's face. There's a whole series of Llama Llama books, but this is our favorite so far.

Why Keira Loves It: She is transfixed by the sounds of the words when the book is read aloud. She fell in love with this book at age 2 at my sister's house, so we had to buy a copy for ourselves: "I want to read Llama Llama Beejama!"

"A mouse took a stroll through the deep dark wood.A fox saw the mouse and the mouse looked good.'Where are you going to little brown mouse?Come and have lunch in my underground house.'"

Why I Love It: It is utterly delightful to read aloud. And there's not just one, but two, unexpected twists in the plot. The author says she originally envisioned the story with a tiger, but she couldn't work that animal into the rhyme scheme, so she invented the imaginary gruffalo. Good move.

Why Keira Loves It: She loves the clever little mouse, and her eyes grow wide as the gruffalo, with his "knobbly knees and turned-out toes" and "poisonous wart at the end of his nose" starts to take shape.

"For finding your mother, there's one certain test.You must look for the creature who loves you the best."

Why I Love It: As an adoptive mother, I especially adore this charming and sweet story, with its surprise ending. Yes, it's oversimplified, because birth mothers love their babies beyond reason too, but it makes a complicated concept accessible to young minds. The rhymes are simple and straightforward and fun for little ones to listen to. This one is probably out of print, since there are only used copies available on Amazon, some as low as $.36.

Why Keira Loves It: This was one of her favorite books, even from a very young age. I think the bright, primary colors captured her attention, and she was able to easily grasp the gist of the story.

"Over in the ocean where the scuba divers diveLived an old mother puffer and her pufferfish five."

Why I Love It: The art is incredible. Each scene was shaped entirely from polymer clay before being photographed for the book. It's a great lesson in counting, and the rhyming stanzas are fun and whimsical. There's an entire series by this author, but this is the only one we've read so far. We bought it in the gift shop of the Aquarium of the Pacific in California.

Why Keira Loves It: The colors and textures are dazzling. Keira loves looking for the mother and trying to find and count all the babies hidden in the pictures: one baby octopus, two baby parrotfish, three baby clownfish, and so on.

Why Listen to Me About Picture Books?

I'm not a children's librarian, a preschool teacher, or an expert in early childhood development, so I'm not judging these books based on age-appropriate vocabulary or reading level. And being fairly new to the motherhood scene, I haven't read all the books yet. A book can make my favorites list based simply on the following four questions:

Can I stand to read it over and over (and over)?

Does it captures Keira's attention and imagination?

Is the writing clear, creative, and accessible?

Is the story not just entertaining, but also meaningful, educational, funny, or clever as well?

I reserve the right to edit and add to my favorites list as I encounter more and more children's books in the years to come. :)

In Case You're Wondering...

My yet-to-be-published children's book? Yes, it rhymes.

How About You?

February 23, 2015

I had the great fortune of spending a day at RootsTech, a huge family-history conference in Salt Lake City this month, where former first lady Laura Bush was one of the morning keynote speakers. Her speech was followed by a Q&A with her daughter, NBC correspondent Jenna Bush Hager.

I was able to sit in the media and blogger section, within 60 feet of the stage, I imagine—although I am notoriously terrible at estimating distances. While this photo came from the event staff instead of my own camera, this pretty closely represents my view of the stage.

I was impressed by Mrs. Bush's poise and Southern gentility. And it was heartwarming and sweet to see this young reporter ask hard-hitting questions like, "Mom, so what's it like to be the grandma of the best baby in the whole wide world?"

There were, of course, other interesting questions asked and anecdotes shared about life as the First Family, such as the night that George and Barbara Bush babysat Jenna and her twin sister Barbara at the White House the night before a presidential debate. One of the girls had misplaced a stuffed cat that she absolutely needed to fall asleep, so grandpa George and the secret service were out combing the grounds with flashlights, only to return and find both girls fast asleep.

Mrs. Bush shared the very human side of what it's like to hold on to family and relationships while living so conspicuously in the public eye. She said she's often asked if it bothered her to see her husband constantly excoriated in the press. Yes, if course it bothered her, just like it would bother anyone, but she purposefully didn't read the worst of it.

"It bothered me, but it didn't get to me. I know who I am. And I know who George is," Laura Bush said.

I loved this for two reasons. First, I have recently discovered and embraced my own personal limits when it comes to consuming negativity in the news. Some days, I just can't do it. The polarization and the vitriol in the news itself—and especially in the comments—can throw a cloud over my head that lasts for hours; I can't imagine how much worse that would be if me or my own loved ones were the direct target of the negativity. Yes, I could become cynical and hard and learn to steel myself against the onslaught, but I'd prefer to continue to be myself while placing proactive limits around the news and commentary I allow into my life.

While I believe it's important to be informed about the issues of the day, I can control how often I'm exposed to the news and what sources I choose to listen to. For me, daily—let alone hourly—is way too much. I can catch up on an entire week's worth of news in an hour, with occasional news binges when a big issue catches my eye. Often, by the time the frenzy of whatever top story is dominating the headlines has receded a bit, there's more information available and a more complete and nuanced story reported.

This is just more evidence of my suspicion—once expressed by my dad—that I was born in the wrong era. I long for a general slowing down.

Second, I want to embrace the "I know who I am" mantra for myself. Because I do know who I am, why I'm here, and what I believe—and perhaps because of that, I feel the chaos and confusion of the world acutely. I find peace and happiness within my family and in myself, and I cherish the freedom I have to make those little daily decisions that lead to inner peace.

But I also feel bombarded by the prevailing messages of the world—those that value cynicism over faith, self-indulgence over self-discipline, hedonism over humility, sarcasm over serenity.

Perhaps because of my sensitive nature, I am inordinately distressed when I see my deeply held personal views on anything (religion and politics, especially) misunderstood or mischaracterized. But such is life. People are so often unwilling to look past their own personal biases to truly see the other side's real intent, to find common ground, or to compromise.

Laura Bush was far more magnanimous about it all—as I probably would be in a speech to thousands of people—in saying that all the bluster and bloviating is nothing more than the grinding gears of democracy happening right before our eyes. The very words "bluster and bloviating" put a less menacing spin on the nature of our national discourse. It's good to remember that so much of it is just spin and political posturing.

Having lived in the White House and having faced the weight of the office and those hallowed halls inhabited by so many great men and women before them, Mrs. Bush said, "Presidents are very generally decent men, trying to do their best with their breathtaking responsibilities." Yes, I believe that's probably true.

Other takeaways from the speech:

Make your life how you want it to be right now.

All we know we have is NOW. It could all change any minute, as it did after 9/11.

Walk on the beach every chance you have.

Read, read, read.

When it comes to parenting, "You show them the way, and then you hope."

It is the job of every American to step up to your own pitcher's mound and stand your ground. And stand proud.

February 11, 2015

For Christmas the year before last (back when I had NO time to blog, but I did have time to take pictures), I used a simple, repeatable formula to create meaningful gift albums for all of my nieces and nephews. Well, except for the two who are too young to appreciate them; they will get theirs in a few years.

You should have seen everyone's faces as they unwrapped their gifts at our family party. Moms and dads teared up. Kids looked through their albums again and again, comparing notes, giggling, trading and trading back. I even spotted two of the albums in a place of honor on my brother's fireplace mantel a few months later.

It was worth every single minute of time it took to pull them together.

I found these personalized, laser-cut, wood album covers on Pick Your Plum a few years ago. It's a deal-a-day site that features limited quantities of craft supplies each day. When they're gone, they're gone. (And these are most definitely GONE. I couldn't even locate anything like them in a Google search.) But you could complete the same project with any type of album.

My Album Recipe:

1 favorite photo for the cover

1 personalized title page

1 photo of me with the recipient

A list of "5 Things I Love About You"

5 favorite photos of the recipient

A list of "5 Hopes for Your Future"

A self-portrait page (for the recipient to fill in)

A 5-question quiz (for the recipient to complete)

You can breeze through all eight albums in this 2-minute video, created in the iMotion time-lapse app for iPhone. Or scroll down for close-ups of two complete albums. Music: "New Soul" by Yael Naim.

An Album for Thomas

I printed and trimmed the cover photos to leave about a 1/2-inch margin around all sides. I adhered them with a super-strong, permanent adhesive like this one or this one.

Each album begins with a personalized title page, with a tiny hand-written note. Fonts used: KG A Little Swag and orange juice. Both are free.

Next up is the very first photo ever taken of the two of us together. Sweet little Thomas was a 25-week, 2 lb. 2 oz. preemie, so I didn't get to hold him for a picture until he was 3 months old.

I selected a different sheet of double-sided patterned paper for each album, trimming them to fit across the top of each page. They are not adhered in place, just slipped loosely onto the jump rings in between the pages.

I included hand-written captions on each photo. I want the kids to know WHY these photos are my favorites; what they mean to me. I love the personal touch that handwriting adds to any project.

I printed most photos to a squarish size and centered them in the space, so there would be room on the bottom for the caption.

I tried to achieve a variety of photos in each album: some close-ups, some full-body shots, some from various ages.

How do you decide among all the wonderful photos you have? Just select the ones that mean something special to you. It almost doesn't matter which you choose. You're not telling a whole life story. This album is just a snapshot of A FEW of your favorites.

I also make sure to include one or two that really show off the child's personality, like this one.

Next up: "5 Hopes for Your Future," personalized for each child.

I reserved a page for each child to draw a self-portrait, showing off his or her current artistic skills.

Each album ends with a 5-question quiz for the child to fill out. I honestly don't know if any of the children have completed these pages in their albums, but I wanted them to have the chance. Here's hoping!

An Album for Haylee

This album was for my oldest niece, born before the turn of the century. (As in, the year 1999. :)

As you can see, all of the interior pages are pretty much the same from album to album, so I could print multiple copies of each page, and then personalize with handwriting and patterned paper.

Why am I including a photo of myself in these albums? Because they are a gift from me. They share MY perspective about the recipient, not some objective truth, so it makes sense that I make an appearance somewhere.

The hardest part about these pages was narrowing them down to just 5 things. And actually, I kind of didn't. You can tell that some numbers mention multiple positive qualities. That's okay. The numbered list still makes them more inviting to read than if it had been one long paragraph.

I mentioned before that all of the patterned papers I chose are double-sided. On some albums, I used both sides of the paper, alternating sides from page to page.

It wasn't possible to crop every photo to a square. For those that were more vertical, I'd just fill the vertical space and write my captions sideways.

Some of these favorite photos have already appeared on scrapbook pages I've completed for me to keep, so it was fun to be able to print copies to share with some of my favorite little people.

I like to include dates when I know them. Because children will inevitably wonder, "How old was I in that picture?"

Photos that showcase relationships are a must. The oldest of 12 cousins, this girl has always been so wonderful to all of the littles.

Close-ups, full-body shots, portraits and candids. The more variety, the better!

Five hopes for her future. I drew on each child's current strengths and qualities as I thought about what I truly wish the future holds for each of my nieces and nephews.

For bigger kids, a self-portrait might be a "selfie" taken with a smartphone. I'll leave that up to the child to decide.

The album ends with that same 5-question quiz.

My sisters and sisters-in-law joke that I scrapbook about their kids more than they do. It's probably true. I don't mind holding the title of "family historian."

February 06, 2015

My fellow memory keepers may be the only people on the planet who can fully appreciate the horror (and the partial redemption) of this cautionary tale. But the rest of you should read on anyway.

I've worked in the scrapbooking industry for 10 years. I have actually worked as a professional memory keeper. I'm married to Travis Lucas.* I have two daily backups of the contents of my entire computer stored at home, plus an additional backup stored at my husband's office that gets updated monthly, all because I am married to Travis Lucas.

If I can lose hundreds of precious photos—maybe thousands, I don't really want to count—so could you.

Here's what happened.

We recently got a new computer, a laptop, which necessitated transferring a scary number of files from our two old computers (purchased in 2009) onto our lone new computer. But I wasn't worried. My husband, a creative director and Mac genius, was in charge. He had a plan. He had thought the data migration through and mapped it out. And the plan went fine.

Except for one thing—that's kind of my fault.

As I've recently been browsing through photos in our photo-organizing program, Aperture, which I love for many reasons that Travis has yet to understand, I noticed a teeny tiny symbol in the corners of some photos. It was a white box with a red diagonal line through it. Never a good sign. So I tried to print or export a few of those photos, and I would get an error telling me the source file couldn't be found.

Hmm.

I dug into it a bit more. This was only happening with a specific range photos, from May 2009 through December 2010. I couldn't export or print most of those photos—except the ones we had taken with our iPhones. Curiouser and curiouser.

Then I remembered: the RAW files.

Here's the thing. Back in May of 2009, we had purchased our first (and as yet our only) fancy DSLR camera—a Nikon D90. Travis took hundreds of pictures while the camera was new, heading out for hours on photographic excursions. He shot some of his best work to date, as you can see here. And he always shot in RAW.

Back then, I was organizing the photos from our old digital camera and our mobile phones in iPhoto, and iPhoto did not handle RAW photo files well at the time. So, we kept all of our Nikon shots organized in a folder system on the hard drive, which we browsed and accessed via a program called Bridge.

When we purchased Aperture a few years later, I migrated our iPhoto library and all of the Bridge photos into it, so everything would be in one easily accessible place. And from then on, all Nikon photos were imported directly into Aperture, alongside the iPhone photos, and we stopped using the hard drive folders for new imports.

The thing we recently discovered is this: when I "imported" those Bridge photos into Aperture way back in 2011, I must not have actually imported them, but instead just created reference files for all of those pictures. Aperture is able to work either way—by storing the original photos inside the program, or by just referencing them from their original location.

Because we weren't sure if the Bridge photos were being referenced or stored in Aperture, WE ACTUALLY TESTED IT TO MAKE SURE before doing anything drastic. We went into the Bridge file structure and deleted a photo. Then we looked at Aperture to see if that photo was still in Aperture. It was. We tried it again. Same thing.

We didn't try to print or export the photos we had deleted as a test. We figured that since we could SEE the photo in Aperture, it must be there. Silly humans. So we proceeded to delete 20 months of Bridge photos from the old computer, thinking they were duplicated in Aperture, and then we reformatted the external backup drive. It wasn't until 2 months later that we noticed the little, tiny red symbol in the corner of all those photos.

Perhaps you noticed, from the screenshot above, exactly why this is so heartbreaking. We lost photos from May 2009 to December 2010. Keira was born October 2, 2010. The first three months of our daughter's life were documented in those pictures.

Photos like this:

Before you get too sad on our behalf, there is a silver lining of sorts.

The nice thing about Aperture—which is the very same thing that tricked us into thinking that the program was storing all of our original pictures—is that all of the preview files can be viewed very, very large. I have a 27-inch Apple monitor, and I can open the images at a size that fills the monitor. And I can take screenshots of those images with a simple little command: Cmd + Shift + 4.

I have verified that the largest screenshot I've been able to take is large enough to print a perfectly adequate 4 x 6 photo. Maybe even larger; I haven't tried yet.

Of course, I lose all of the meta data of the original pictures (such as the date the files were taken), and it's going to be a big huge pain in the butt to take screenshots of 20 months of photos. AND I am prodigiously sad that some of Trav's beautiful pictures—seriously some of his best work and some of our favorite vacation shots ever—can't be printed in big 11 x 14 wall prints.

However, for a little bit of perspective, there are the following four facts:

We at least have the preview images and the ability to take (and print) screenshots in a standard 4 x 6 photo size. It could be SO much worse.

I don't have ANY photos from my own childhood that would look very good printed much larger than a 4 x 6. These beautiful, high-res photos we enjoy now are a relatively new phenomenon.

We still have all the photos we took on our iPhones during that time period, and there were certainly a lot of those.

And...there are two more options we have yet to try:

1. Speak to the Apple support line to find out if there's a way to "export" the photo previews at their largest size, so I don't have to spend weeks taking screenshots.

2. Spend $120 on software that Travis can use to comb through our old machine (which has had files deleted but has not been reformatted and has otherwise been sitting untouched) to see if those original Bridge files can be recovered, and then actually IMPORTED into Aperture for real.

So, yes, it felt like a disaster for about 48 hours. But it's really not the end of the world.

And that brings me to my real point in writing today.

Do you want to know what just got a lot more precious?

All of the photos I have printed and/or scrapbooked from that period in my life. The tangible pictures I can hold in my hands.

I've always considered us fairly savvy when it comes to technology and data, and we're pretty darn diligent about redundancy and performing regular backups. And yet clearly we are still vulnerable to human error. If this can happen to us, something similar could happen to you.

Yes, I know there are online backup options, and maybe they would have helped in our case (but maybe not, since we deliberately deleted thousands of files that we thought were saved elsewhere on our same machine—and backed up in triplicate), but NO system is 100% failsafe or foolproof.

If you're not currently backing up your photos on an external drive of some sort or via a cloud-based solution, do it now. You still have time to avoid that stomach-dropping, sick feeling of losing thousands of precious memories. And even if you do have a digital backup solution in place and you are following all of the recommended steps faithfully, realize that all data preservation systems still have their vulnerabilities.

So, I urge you to also print some of your photos, some of the time. Especially your favorites.

That is all.

* Here's what it means when I say "I'm married to Travis Lucas" as a data point in this story. He is the most prepared of the prepared. He packs enough water for a week if we'll be driving in the desert for 6 hours. He has duffle bags filled with emergency gear we could grab on our way out the door, if needed, one for each family member. He performs regular maintenance on all of our digital devices, upgrading and updating software on schedule. He believes in extended warranties. He plans every move meticulously well in advance. The cars are always clean, even when we have a baby or toddler around, because HE cleans them. He is the very best preserver of machines, animal companions, human beings, automobiles, and digital devices in the world.

January 30, 2015

The problem with being a ghostwriter, which is one of the things I'm doing now, is that many of my most brilliant sentences can never be attributed to me.

Sure, those sparkling strings of words may be about a topic as banal as project management, but that doesn't make them any less witty or wise.

I almost typed my most recent favorite sentence right into this post, but then I remembered that we live in the days of Google, and you'd be able to find the full article lickety-split. And then the secret would be out. I tried rewriting the sentence to make it unGooglable and yet retain its glory, but there's no substitute for the original.

I don't necessarily feel like ghostwriting has to be a dirty little secret. It happens more than you may realize. After all, the articles I'm writing now are not my ideas, so I don't need the credit for them. I spend an hour with the "thought leader" in question, pulling as many ideas out of him or her as I can. I use direct quotes when possible, and then I craft a readable, well-organized, scannable article (because, short attention spans), embellishing with related research as needed.

The entire time I'm writing, I imagine the author's actual speaking voice in my head. Then the article goes back to the author for review. He pulls out anything that doesn't sound like something he would say, adds a bit more of his own personal flair, and makes suggestions for me. I revise as needed and turn in the final.

Yes, sing it Ingrid. I'm a Gho-ost.

It's actually a pretty great gig.

You combine what the thought leader is good at (coming up with innovative ideas that resonate with the intended audience) with what I'm good at (writing and organizing ideas) and it's the perfect symbiotic relationship. She gets to just sit and talk, spilling her ideas out loud in a quarter of the time it would take her to write them. I get great material to shape into something greater.

The ideas themselves are appropriately attributed to the person who thought of them; I just make them more accessible—and sound prettier.

Certainly, a little bit of "me" inevitably creeps in, and I discover my own dormant ideas and experiences related to team management or hiring best-practices. Perhaps I'll start collecting them—those that truly come from my own head—and become a business thought leader myself. Ha.

At the very least, I should save some of my own brilliance for my blog. I'm getting better at that. I think I've already blogged more this year than all of last year, and prospects look good for the remainder of 2015.

In case you're wondering whether ghost-writing has ever happened in the craft and scrapbooking industries, the answer is YES. Entire books by scrapbookers you know and love were ghost-written by staff writers and editors. Not all or even most of them, but I do know of a couple of instances (none by me). If you sometimes wonder how certain scrapbooking celebrities are able to do it all, the answer is that they can't. They often have help. And there's nothing wrong with that in my book—as long as they're making their own memories, creating their own scrapbook pages, and thinking their own ideas.

Some people just need a "professional idea polisher." Like me.

(For the record, note that none of the books that were published under the Simple Scrapbooks label were ghost-written. Stacy Julian, Cathy Zielske, Elizabeth Dillow, Rebecca Cooper—they all wrote their own books. Every word.)

January 27, 2015

"The winter storm, predicted to be one of the worst ever to hit New York City,failed to deliver much of a blow.... Children stayed home from school, even in areas with hardly enough snow to build a snowman."—The New York Times, January 27, 2015

I admit I was sitting over here in brown, brown Utah, feeling a bit jealous of the impending blizzard back East. Yes, we enjoyed a glittering white blanket of snow that draped my beloved landscape, magically, in the wee hours of Christmas morning. But we haven't seen much of the white stuff since. I miss it.

Here is a pictorial representation of what happened in our mere 16 days of winter wonderland. Now, it's just winter, minus the wonderland.

For those of you who did get enough snow to build a snowman, but not enough to overly disrupt your life, don't forget to photograph your snowman's rise...as well as his demise.

December 25

January 6

January 8

January 9

I don't know if I would have bothered to snap these shots, if not for the darling kids in my neighborhood. When our snowman's head fell off and rolled across the grass, the kids walking home from the bus stop did not kick the rest of the snowman apart, as kids are often apt to do.

Instead, they picked up his head, put it back, and even replaced the carrot nose. He was crumbling apart in the morning, and in the afternoon, we came home to find him intact. Now that's adorable. (Did you notice the lone eyeball in the lower right corner of the picture?)

A few days later, when he had melted into a tiny mound, representing the last smidgen of snow left in our south-facing front yard, Keira and I put his little face back together and replaced the scarf. It was his last hurrah.

Just 24 hours later, he was nothing more than a pile of eyes and buttons.

We haven't seen a flake of snow since. Naturally, this was the year my siblings and I gave my parents a snow-blower for Christmas. :)

January 16, 2015

While I don't think I'm a particularly SAD person, I do have a slightly harder time regulating my mood in the winter, particularly in January and February when the novelty of the snow and the cute sweaters has worn off.

Here are a few tips that have helped brighten my mood on dreary days. Obviously, wearing polka-dot socks isn't going to cure a real case of Seasonal Affective Disorder (for that, try a "happy lamp"), but if you're just a little bit blue—you know in the steel blue range vs. a deep, dark navy—maybe these ideas will help.

1. Go Where the People AreOne of the things that I both love and hate about winter is my tendency to hibernate. I do love cozying up next to the fireplace under a warm quilt to read a good book late into the evening. But since I've been working primarily from home over the last 5 years, I find the extra isolation from people in the winter can affect my mood. A new gym finally opened up within 10 minutes of my house, and it seems that is where all the people of Bluffdale and Riverton are. Pulling into that crowded parking lot at 7 or 8 at night gives me an instant energy flicker; the boost doesn't usually arrive until after the workout. Oh, I don't exactly talk to anyone. But there's something about being in the same cavernous room with a hundred sweaty strangers that increases my feelings of camaraderie and common humanity. (Now there's a sentence I never thought I'd write.)

2. Drive to the SunLast Sunday, we needed an escape from the endless gray skies. We packed a lunch and a bunch of snacks, and we headed into the nearby desert. We drove and drove until we saw the sun. Out in the wilderness, southwest of Salt Lake County, you can hook into the old Pony Express Trail and drive it for 133 miles (no services), until you reach Fish Springs, a strange and isolated oasis. Sometimes you won't see another living creature. We saw maybe five other cars all day long. Sometimes you'll see a few rabbits and wild mustang, like we did on Sunday. Sometimes you'll even see a massive herd of antelope running through the brush in the same direction you're driving (that happened once in 2005, and it was magical). We rolled the windows down and breathed in the unspoiled, clear air. We sat at a picnic table in the middle of nowhere and ate peanut butter sandwiches with the sun on our faces. We soaked up enough vitamin D to last us a week. When we weren't chewing or talking or tromping through the patchy snow, we could hear literally nothing. Dead silence for miles around. We road-tripped on paved and dirt paths for 7 or 8 hours, just there and back, stopping to expolore here and there, talking and not talking, listening to satellite radio, reading The Lord of the Rings, connecting. I believe that any journey, no matter how small, can enliven a dreary week.

Keira Jane standing on green volcanic rock near Simpson Springs. I love that her fingers are crossed! Even this much blue sky was a balm for the soul.

Fun Fact: Did you know that the Pony Express trail was only operational for one year before it was made obsolete by the overland telegraph? For having such a brief history, it sure holds a big place in Western lore.

3. Wash a WindowPerhaps you are a more diligent window washer than I am. Perhaps you clean your windows more than once every year (or two, sheepish grin). If so, you may not see as great an effect. But I've found that taking a moment to thoroughly clean just one window, even if freezing temperatures make it impossible to address more than the inside of the glass, quite literally improves my outlook. On Wednesday, on day three of a self-imposed sick-child quarantine, I pulled out a stool and washed my kitchen window while I waited for the water to boil for lunch. I couldn't stop gazing through that clear, bright glass for the rest of the day. I had been looking at the world through a blurry, build-up of film for I don't know how long. I can't quite describe how I felt after that simple, 2-minute Windex job—cleansed, refreshed, lifted somehow.

4. Wear Bright SocksI have a pair of blindingly bright orange socks with lime-green toes and fuschsia polka-dots. I'm fairly sure they were a gift, because I can't imagine picking them out. They are the softest, coziest socks ever darned. I wear them incessantly in the winter. Artist and blogger Kelly Rae Roberts talks of getting #dressedupinjoy. I love that idea. Many days, I dress in what fits well and feels comfortable. I haven't yet taken the leap into dressing intentionally each day in joyful colors and fabrics, head to toe. But this is an easy feat to accomplish on one's feet. Even while wearing my current favorite black leggings and gray-and-white striped sweater, the splash of color on my feet makes me happy. (Is it weird that I love the color gray? Is it even a color at all—or is it the absence of color? I have to physically restrain myself from buying every article of clothing in gray.)

5. Have Something to Look Forward ToPlan something, anything, to pin your hopes on and pull you through doldrums. On our Sunday road trip, Travis and I decided that we need to do this way more often. We made a goal to plan an intentional (not last-minute) weekend adventure every other month, and to take turns doing the planning. Trav is in charge of February, and I'm in charge of April. On his months, we will probably end up in Moab or Canyonlands, crusing through miles of open desert, hiking through the red rocks, and photographing the stark, incomparable landscape. On my months, we may end up in a quaint little bed and breakfast, with window-shopping, antiquing, and sightseeing nearby. We have both agreed to go along with the other person's plans, knowing that we'll have a chance to be in charge next time. Don't get me wrong; I do love our southern Utah adventures, but I wouldn't necessarily plan every vacation there. Travis would. Whereas I dream of seeing the wide world beyond our little borders, Travis wants to know every miniscule corner of the great state in which we live. It's another way that we push and pull each other and keep each other in balance. I'm glad I married my opposite in almost every way. My life is richer because of it.

Note: Image at the top of this post was snapped from my iPhone on Christmas Eve at the top of the Snowbird Ski Resort tram, looking west over the Salt Lake Valley.

January 14, 2015

I've attended the Craft & Hobby Association tradeshow once or twice every year since 2006—maybe even since 2005, although I don't have the photographic evidence to prove it.

In those days, the CHA tradeshow could occupy multiple halls and multiple floors, and in order to see everything you needed a delegation of people working together to plot out routes, make appointments, take notes, trade notes, and tell you which booths were "must see." All crafts from yarn to paint were represented, but there were years that saw 2/3 of the available booths taken up by scrapbooking and memory-keeping businesses.

The above picture is actually from Memory Trends (a now defunct tradeshow that was held yearly, alongside the two CHA shows). In those days, manufacturers, magazines, and industry folk were getting together every January, July, and September in Anaheim, Las Vegas, Chicago, and even Atlanta. It was like going to a family reunion three times a year.

Many of the same characters from the last picture, plus baby Addie Julian and art-director Marin Barney on the right.

Here we are at CHA-Winter 2007 in Anaheim, the year Simple Scrapbooks magazine turned 5. It's funny. In my mind, 8 or even 10 years doesn't sound like it was really that long ago. It feels like 2007 just happened. Until I remember that's the year I got my first iPhone. Haven't we had iPhones FOREVER? Until I look closely and see how young we all looked (especially Addie, ha!).

This is a good reminder of something I often think: I'm not getting any younger. So no matter how "old" I think I look today, in 10 years I will look back on whatever picture I'm about to take and be surprised at how youthful I looked way back then. I always just take the picture, knowing the future me will appreciate it.

Over the years, CHA has gotten smaller and smaller, going from from multiple halls and multiple floors to just one portion of one hall. The yarn and paint aisles have remained roughly constant (or so it seems to me), but the scrapbooking aisles keep on dwindling and consolidating. It's always a bit sad to see at first, but it doesn't take away from my favorite part—the familiar faces and the instant connections with crafty ladies from all over the world.

The path outside the Anaheim Convention Center in 2014.

I'm still a keeper of memories. Always have been. Always will be. (You'll see some scrapbooky posts in the coming weeks.) And since the latest product trends have never been my biggest memory-keeping priority, I really didn't think I'd miss being at CHA this year. For me, it has always been about the story.

I enjoy the cute papers, punches, pocket products, washi tapes, and all the modern memory-keeping trappings as much as the next person. But I feel no real pressure to personally incorporate product trends in my scrapbooks. When I look back on my pages 10 years from now, none of the products I've used will be "on trend" any longer anyway. In the year 2025, I won't care if I used techniques that were popular in 2010 on a page that was created in 2015. I will care about the pictures, I will care about the story, and I will be grateful that I took the time to capture a memory. And of course, I'll probably remark on how young I looked way back in 2015 (wink).

Yes, I had plenty of reasons to stay home: I'm no longer officially employed within the industry, CHA was early this year and I didn't even think about travel plans until after Christmas, it's been a hectic winter, my California sister (who provides my free place to stay) had just spent a week visiting here, and we're busy trying to adopt again. But as I've watched my Instagram and Facebook feeds fill up with #CHA2015 posts, I found I missed it all the same.

Of course, there's always next year...

My Challenge to YouDon't shy away from the camera this year. Allow yourself to be photographed, especially with people you care about. You will thank yourself later.

January 08, 2015

One thing I'd like to do this year is to write about my life in a way that encourages you to write about your life, giving you tips and tools to try along the way.

I'm going to start by making a fairly bold statement, which I will support with evidence arranged in a numbered list. Here is my claim:

Christmas 2014 Was Practically Perfect in Every Way

Don't believe me? Allow me to present the evidence.

1. Utah had been experiencing an unusually warm December. We had seen nary a single flake of snow the entire month. But on Christmas morning, we awoke to the beauty of shimmering white snow blanketing the landscape. The first major snowstorm of the year arrived quietly in the early hours of Christmas day.

The kicker: when Keira finally ventured onto the front porch to behold the beauty, she spotted clear evidence of reindeer tracks leading right to our door. Magical!

2. After watching A Christmas Carol (the 1938 version, of course) as a family the night before, and having Keira fall asleep right on my chest while snuggling under a Christmas quilt made by her grandma (see? perfect!), Keira slept in until after 8:00 a.m. This meant mom and dad got to snuggle under those warm, cozy covers for a few extra winks.

3. Mom and dad managed to stick to the Christmas budget much, much closer than in years past. (Blame that on a possibly ill-timed home-office remodel in November and our contribution to our college boy's tuition, which was due December 19. Could there be a worse due date?)

4. Keira's closest cousins (in age) were in town from California and staying with my mom, which meant my sister and I were able to coordinate matching Christmas Eve pajamas for our girls once again. Behold the cuddly cuteness.

5. We spent exactly the right amount of time playing in the white wonderland (translation: before anyone got too wet and cold and began to cry). We managed to build a small snowman, complete with eyebrows, using the ingenious "snowman kit" my sister-in-law gave to us a previous Christmas. Alert: great neighbor gift idea for next year!

6. One small piece of counter-evidence to our "perfect" day: while Travis used the snow blower to clear our driveway and the driveways of several neighbors, Keira and I pelted him with a few friendly snowballs. While I was distracted with the snowman, Travis paused for his counter-attack. Of course, I moved just as he unleashed the snowball, so instead of hitting my upper arm as intended...you guessed it, right between the eyes! Which was kind of perfect in its own way.

7. I achieved the goal of NOT exhausting myself by spending the entire day in the kitchen. My contribution to the Hill family potluck was not only simple (Sweet Chex Mix and a veggie tray), but it was also prepared the night before. And I kept breakfast delicious but simple, unlike the cinnamon rolls I have baked in years past. This year: fried eggs, bacon, and sharp cheddar on oven-warmed bakery croissants. Our taste buds thanked us, while our arteries most assuredly did not.

8. Keira's big brother, Jeremy—who has chosen to go by his middle name, Conrad, henceforth—popped in for presents, hugs, and dinner mid-day, and we had plenty of time to visit with him before he had to rush off to various other parent and grandparent commitments. (Much like many other children of divorce, this kiddo has probably a dozen grandparents. :) My parents timed their gift drop-off perfectly, so they could give him a gift and a hug as he was on his way out the door.

9. The experimental, simplified Christmas dinner I attempted was a big success. I was looking for something festive and traditional, but easy. I stumbled across this crockpot Sauerbraten recipe while Googling "easy holiday recipes" on my iPhone from the aisles of the grocery store. It is apparently a traditional German holiday dish. (Yes, we probably have some German in our melting-pot European heritage.) It did not smell great while it was marinating overnight and cooking in the crockpot. But it was tender and delicious, and definitely easy! We enjoyed it with baked Idaho potatoes, straight from the farmer to our door earlier that week, and steamed broccoli. I've seen a few other fun variations on this recipe that I think I'll try next year.

10. After a lovely, low-key dinner with Travis's parents and Conrad, we had several hours alone, just the three of us. We read books, played with Christmas toys, eventually cleaned up all the wrapping paper, and even enjoyed a long winter's nap.

11. Miss Keira was allowed to wear her Christmas pajamas all day long, just as she wished.

12. Later that evening, we gathered together at a rented church with every single member of my side of the family, except my brother and nephew who had the flu. (So, there's one more piece that was not quite perfect.) The kids had plenty of room to run and play, the music lovers among us had pianos on which to sing and play Christmas carols, we enjoyed a simple pot-luck dinner, and we giggled through our traditional white-elephant gift exchange for the adults. A pair of yellow, men's Batman underwear were exchanged for the third year in a row.

There you have it. A dozen pieces of evidence to support my theory that Christmas 2014 was practically perfect in every way. I got to see nearly every person I love most in the world. I awoke unexpectedly to a glorious, White Christmas. The food was great, the Christmas spirit was abundant, and God blessed us, every one.

Your TurnIn your journal, on a scrapbook page, or on your blog, make a claim and then back it up with evidence presented in a numbered list. It's a simple and inviting way to tell a story about your life. Here's a version you can save and share on Pinterest to remind you!

January 01, 2015

Transitions never go the way they think they will. Sometimes they exceed our expectations, sometimes they fail to meet our expectations, sometimes our expectations are not even in the same universe as the reality we experience.

Wait, that sounds exactly like the start of my last post! Because the last post was supposed to be about my career transitions, but it went in a different (but good) direction.

I've spent the last 10 years working in the scrapbooking and memory keeping industry. I have loved it. I've loved the personal growth, the motivation to tell my story in my own way, the rubbing of shoulders with my creative mentors, the lifelong friends I've made, and so much more. The industry has been an enormous gift in my life.

The Simple Scrapbooks team circa 2007 or so.

But at the same time, I've spent so much time developing and polishing other people's ideas that I haven't had as much time as I'd like to explore my own. I have put so much passion and energy into other brands that I've barely found the time to blog at all since, oh, 2012.

After 5 years at Simple Scrapbooks magazine, I started my own little online publishing company with a friend. You should get a good look at ellapublishing.com right now, because the site will be going dark as of February 1, 2015. Today, I've been slowly "unpublishing" the eBooks I painstakingly brainstormed, assigned, edited, and posted for sale from 2009 to 2012. As I've removed them from the site, in the order of their publication, I've been reliving that time in my life. It's been a wonderful walk down memory lane. I remember my first conversation with the uber talented photographer Rebecca Cooper about each of her three eBooks. I remember calling Donna Jannuzzi and spending an hour on the phone with her while driving through Wyoming with Wendy Smedley, at the end of our first of three treasured visits to Elizabeth Dillow in Cheyenne.

A little peek at the about-to-disappear Ella Publishing Co. website that dominated 3 years of my life...

I'm unpublishing these eBooks because they're technically no longer available for sale on ellapublishing.com as of December 31, 2014. (They will be available at bigpictureclasses.com for another 30 days, however.) If you're interested in one of these endangered Ella Publishing Co. eBooks, you have about 30 more days to stock up. You can find them here. After February 1, 2015, you won't be able to find them anywhere.

My first eBook for Ella Publishing Co., written with Wendy Smedley.

You see, I sold ellapublishing.com to Big Picture Classes in 2012. It was the best possible move for my company and for my little family. This incredible blessing came along at the perfect time—when Keira was still a baby. I poured about half of my heart and soul into my new role at Big Picture Classes (the bigger half was for being a new mama). I didn't want the BPC folks to regret purchasing my company even for a second. I wanted to make the biggest possible difference I could, to reward them for their faith in me.

The BPC team mixed in with dozens of attendees at our January Play! event. I'm right behind Mickey, you can see little Keira looking down at Mickey suspiciously.

And then, just a few months ago, Big Picture Classes sold to Studio Calico. I don't think the transition has gone the way anyone expected to. I did everything in my power to influence what I could influence, and then it became necessary for me to accept what was out of my control. And while I may have stressed a bit more than strictly necessary, maybe gaining a few pounds because of all of the emotional eating (which I am committed to losing again ASAP!), I do think it will be a good thing in the end. I have come to a place of personal peace, strength, energy, and excitement for the future.

Through it all, it became very clear that I'm ready for a different path. I am still passionate about memory keeping, but I will no longer work in the memory-keeping industry in an official capacity for another brand, neither full-time (as I did for the first five years in the industry) nor part-time (as has been my life for the last five years). My creative and scrapbooking-related efforts can be poured into my own projects.

I've been tapering off with BPC/Studio Calico since October, and my last day was December 31, 2014. I'm now a solo freelance writer and editor, taking on only the individual projects that interest me. And so far, I've been very lucky to be kept as busy as I want to be, writing behind-the-scenes for various brands you might recognize.

Life is good.

For me, at least, these changes happened at the right time to put me in the right place to move on in the right way. And I have more time and energy to devote to my daughter, to maybe decorating those blank walls in my home, to completing a dozen half-finished scrapbook projects, and to our hopes of adopting again soon.